Exclusive: Sprint EVO 4G and two-way Qik video chat

Sprint just went live with their HTC EVO 4G in New York City, and there’s one juicy detail that we hadn’t caught wind of until today. The EVO will be the first US smartphone to do true-blue video calling, thanks to Sprint’s launch partner Qik. We had known about the forward-facing camera on the HTC EVO 4G for some time, but we had no idea that Sprint was looking to use it to do real video calling.

Qik was on hand at the Sprint EVO 4G event to tell us a little about the EVO’s exclusive video calling feature and to demonstrate the video calling app’s relatively low lag times. As you can see from the video, the lag between the two EVO’s conducting the video chat is as low as we could hope for.

What’s more, the Qik app can make use of either the front-facing or the rear-facing camera. That means you can video chat with a friend in a two-way face-to-face conversation, or you can simply show your friend what’s happening on the other side of your EVO 4G. Now that’s a really cool feature.

All in all, the video chat feature is a big selling point for the EVO 4G – on top of the massive 4.3-inch touchscreen, the 8-megapixel camera, HDMI video output, and HD 720p video recording.

Make sure to check out all our HTC EVO 4G hands-on coverage here and here and here.

Sadly… it's a piece of crap. Not the hardware, it's gorgeous. I've been waiting for this phone for a long long long long time now. No… it's the service that makes this phone miserable. Because it's serviced by a bunch of liars.

On March 24th, Dan Hesse said:

"It's like standard def versus high def, but with that analogy, you paid more for the better service. With 4G, we're giving you more for free."

Turns out, Dan Hesse lied. They do intend to charge extra for 4G, and everyone should give them hell for lying about this in the first place. In that same interview Dan Hesse said switching to 4G data will inevitably save Sprint money… why the $10 then Dan?

Dan Hesse, the CEO of Sprint, announced live on stage the 4G data connection wouldn't cost extra, and he shoved it in the faces of other careers. Hold him to his word: